Mumsnet race to the bottom

[limeandwater]

I have noticed on MN there has been a real race to the bottom mentality. To be clear I am not talking about budget advice threads that can be incredibly helpful.

I am talking about the posters that think working people should be so accepting of a miserable life.

Again I am not talking about 5 star holidays in The Maldives, 26 plate Range Rovers, or shopping at Harrods Food Hall.

Somebody posts about the price of coffee then the response is to make your own and bring it with you. Somebody posts about the price of a cafe lunch on a family day out and the response is bring your own sandwiches. Somebody posted about the cost of running a car and the answer is cycle. Like that's realistic in a rainy December.

When did people get so accepting that life had to be miserable?

This is it - why does nobody turn to a pub drinker, point at their pint of Guinness and say "what a waste, they sell little bottles of French beer in Lidl for 50p each". I don't want the brown piss water!

didn't stop the Pythons.

No you won't. You'll disintegrate.

I don't think sensible tips on saving money are a race to the bottom.

Sometimes people have grown up not knowing how to be frugal and suddenly find money is tight. They don't have lifelong money saving habits.

Some people grew up poor and make frugality a way of life even if they don't have to as a way of saving up for bigger things.

You buy a cafetière, @Jellycatspyjamas, and the cheaper ground coffee.

You can buy a Bialetti stove top coffee machine, £23. Had ours for years, half of Italy have them and they make way better coffee than anything Costa makes.

I find it frustrating when people flatly refuse to take grown up mature decisions about their spending because they think it’s boring or they ‘deserve a treat’. It’s so childish. Buy a coffee every day if you can afford to. But I had a colleague who’d buy a coffee on the way to work and another in the afternoon because she ‘needed it to get through the day’ and then would bitch endlessly about being skint.

It’s the same about the overeaters that boast about eating cake and chocolates all day every day in the Christmas period. Are you then bitching about being overweight?

We’re grown ups. We can predict the future outcomes of our current actions. So many seem to shy away from the future debt / obesity that results from the present indulgences. It’s childish. Grow up. Take responsible actions, no matter how boring they may be.

my local chippy has fucking massive portions and yes me and my dd can split a portion and still not finish it. I’m aware not all chippies a like that though (Norfolk if anyone wants to know).

Do you live near me in Norfolk, W, on the very rare occasion I get fish and chips I have to say Stop to the person doling out chips! My late OH and I would get 2 fish and 1 portion of chips and some were still left over. I now can air fry the left overs next day.

Yes, and it tastes like cheap filter coffee from a jug in Little Chef. That's not a machine and a budget for flavoured beans.

As a cycle commuter I agree. It’s surprisingly rare that you get soaked through, I average probably only once a year.

Borrow a bike. Save 5 weeks of bus fares. If after 5 weeks you want to keep going, buy a second hand bike for £50.

Waterproofs are bulky and sweaty and generally only helpful when it's utterly peeing down. Usually better to wear leggings or similar and get changed. The idea that you need cycle specific sports clothes to get on a bike is just a marketing con. Sure if you race or want to ride a mtb through the mud, but for basic transport any day to day clothes will do.

Some poster post when they have something to say and some because they want to say something. Don't account the later.
Once I have said that, until the 2000s people live more frugally than were have been in use in the last decade. We have built a on the go culture and we spend far to much money that now with the cost of living crisis is becoming unafordable. Is ok to complain about the coffee you can't buy any longer on your way every morning because you are in use to it, it is ok to say that 4 quid for a cuppa is just extortion and it is ok to complain because you have a coffee shop and you need to rise to that price to keep the business going due the amount of things you have to pay. We are all in the same crisis.
Hospitality is going to have a big down, they are the sector which is going to notice this more and that is crap because there is going to be job losses etc etc.

£5 for a square of muslin or paper filters and a coffee filter or a cafetière that you can get from a charity ship makes better coffee than most of those posh machines - do a taste test.

You are correct.
The frustration comes when coffee-buyers and takeaway-buyers say they are getting expensive and the response is "You shouldn't be buying it anyway, you irresponsible wastrel".

I often think of a poster who was saying at luxury hotel for a special birthday treat and got an incorrect 5am wake up call from reception - she had requested no call they got the room wrong. She asked on here if she should complain and was pulled apart for not being up early, wasting the day and staying in an expensive hotel in the first place.

it’s not about saving money for me, lots of us are on a budget, it’s sucking any minor bit of enjoyment or making things easier from life.

surely any working person/family should be able to afford a cafe lunch,

Of course, but it's a question of other priorities isn't it. I might be buying a car that needs to be paid off for example, or my child needs to have a school trip paid for. or a hundred and one other priorities.
Nothing to do with not being able to pay for a greasy and fatty cafe lunch when I have perfectly healthy lunches at home or 3 lattes a day...

I think it depends on what your priorities are.
I am 57, only work 15 hours a week on a minimum paid job and l live very happily.
I am not in receipt of any benefits, no debts and l managed to pay my mortgage off recently after 13 years of paying it off by myself, obviously l worked more hours then.
I do have a bike because l actually love cycling no matter what the weather, l don't run a car because l can get to work in a few minutes, and lucky in that l can borrow my sons car who works from home.
I do take my coffee and snacks out sometimes simply because l know what l like to eat, if I'm out on a long bike ride l don't want to waste money on some thing served from an old dirty shack in middle of nowhere. I cycle through beautiful countryside and forrests l absolutely love it.
So for me it's anything but miserable but l also understand wouldn't be for everyone.

Assuming you can borrow a bike, and the £10 saving doesn’t get swallowed up in daily living, and you can find a second hand bike for £50 that doesn’t need maintenance.

Its not about having special cycling clothes, a waterproof coat isn’t specialist but is needed if you’re cycling to work in a way that is less urgent if you’re on a bus or carrying an umbrella.

When they voted for Starmer.

The CoL threads tend to be full of complaints about how expensive fresh food is. It depends on what you buy. There are fruit and veg that is comparatively cheap.

You can get a waterproof coat quite cheaply in somewhere like Mountain Warehouse. Even a pac-a-mac from Primark will do for a journey of only 3 or 4 miles.
It doesn't rain all day every day even in winter.

I wore cheap cycling bottoms and changed when I got to work. There was a shower there if you needed it.

You don't need an expensive bike.

See here we go again. Why does a café lunch have to be greasy and fatty? Why so judgemental?

There are people that have no sense of perspective too, "I bet they have a Netflix subscription...". I always think, but that is keeping a whole household entertained for a month for less than 1 ticket for 1 person to see a single film at the cinema.

People are generally ridiculous about this kind of thing. Of course you should expect more than subsistence living for a household with 2 adults in full-time careers. There should be no requirement of gratitude that you own 15YO car to get you there.

Spend some money on proper clothing and you'll find that it only rains about 25 days a year look at the met office figures

I do agree with you OP. But I also think some expectation have crept up. Like we eat supermaker smoked salmon every week. The kids like it... When I was a kid it was smoked salmon at Christmas only.
Same with fruit. We eat bags of mango and pineapple and my youngest will eat a bunch of bananas in 2 days... when I was a kid it was an apple or a satsuma for the day!
Water... straight from the tap into a glass. Now you need a £42 giant sippy and a filter...

Where, in Marbella? It rained 25 days in February alone here in the SW.